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Bioethicist: Families, stop thwarting organ donors

Despite the great demand, very few Americans donate their organs when they die. But the reason for that may not be what you’d think -- it’s your relatives.

That’s what David Shaw, honorary lecturer at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, thinks the real problem is. In an article published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal, he writes that one of the biggest reasons more people don’t wind up donating is veto by their family.

Even when you have signed a donor card or checked off your driver’s license a family member can still object to your being an organ donor. And some do -- at least 10 percent of the time or more, says Shaw. (That number may be even higher, according to other U.S. researchers.) Shaw says doctors ought to forget cousin Fred’s second-guessing or your sister’s distaste for donation and ought to honor your written wishes and use you as a donor.

Interestingly enough, that’s actually the law in the U.S. In nearly every state, a signed driver’s license or organ donor card is fully adequate for allowing donation no matter what your brother-in-law or other family member thinks. But despite that, doctors are still swayed by the family’s wishes.

Shaw is up against some tough problems when he urges doctors to ignore family protests. Is it really realistic for organ and tissue procurement to proceed no matter how upset family members might be about it?

And even if doctors are willing to plow ahead no matter what kind of emotional chaos is occurring in the next room, which hospital wants to risk a headline that says, “Liver removed while widow wails; Doc says ‘But I had a signed driver’s license’”?

Shaw is right to urge doctors not to give up at the first sign of family discomfort. When you sign a card or your driver’s license, you should expect that you will be able to be a donor.

I would argue, however, that the problem with family objections is not fearful doctors backing down in the face of distressed or divided families. The problem is what you and I often fail to do when we sign those cards and licenses — tell others!

If you sign your driver’s license at motor vehicles it is not likely that the friendly employee you waited an hour to see is going to be there when you die. Your family and friends will be. You need to tell them while you are alive that you want to be an organ and tissue donor. That is the antidote for avoiding an outbreak of objections when your number is up and being a donor is the last way you can help those in need. If you make it clear while alive what your wishes are that is the most important step you can take to having them honored when you are not.

Arthur Caplan is the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.